The present invention relates to targeted television advertising and, more particularly, to a system and method for delivering statistically scheduled advertisements in multiple presentation streams to subscribers in a television service network.
In conventional “program-linked” television advertising, each advertisement is linked to a particular television program so that all viewers viewing the particular program see the same advertisements linked to that program. Viewers who are not viewing that program will not see the advertisements linked to that program. In such program-linked advertising, the advertisements are simply part of the data stream from the head end, i.e., from the central office of the television service provider, to all subscribers of that service.
However, with modern digital television service systems, such as digital cable systems, DBS (Digital Broadcast Satellite) systems, and SDV (Switched Digital Video) systems, more personalized television service is possible. For instance, in DBS and SDV systems, individual subscriber households can be addressed selectively through set top boxes or STBs. In digital cable systems, a group of subscriber households can be selectively addressed through a cable node serving that group. For this reason, STBs and cable nodes are also referred to herein as addressable units. Through the addressable units, the television service provider can send different data to different subscribers or groups of subscribers.
The selective addressability of these modern digital television service systems renders more targeted television advertising possible. In accordance with one targeted television advertising method, ads that have been prepared to interest a particular subscriber of the television service network may be inserted into ad spots or “avails” of the television presentation stream at the particular subscriber's device (e.g., a set top box). As a result, subscribers at different households will see different advertisements that are particularly directed to each subscriber even though they are viewing the same programming. PCT Patent Publication No. WO 99/66719 entitled “Techniques for Intelligent Video Ad Insertion,” which is herein incorporated by reference, discloses at least one such scheme. Other such schemes are discussed in aforementioned Provisional Patent Application No. 60/229,156, owned by the same assignee of the present invention.
Although these systems provide effective means to deliver targeted ads to the subscribers, in some applications, it may be desirable to have a system which delivers targeted ads to the subscribers without the ad insertion occurring at the subscriber's STB. Applicant's co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/750,800, filed on Dec. 28, 2000 entitled “System and Method for Delivering Targeted Advertisements using Multiple Presentation Streams,” which is herein fully incorporated by reference, discloses such a system.
In the system of Applicant's co-pending application Ser. No. 09/750,800 filed on Dec. 28, 2000 entitled “System and Method for Delivering Targeted Advertisements Using Multiple Presentation Streams”, a television presentation stream corresponding to a particular programming channel is “replicated” to produce a plurality of presentation streams, collectively referred to herein as a presentation stream group. The system produces a plurality of such presentation stream groups each corresponding to one of a plurality of programming channels. All the presentation streams in a presentation stream group have the same programming and the same avails at the same locations. Each single presentation stream in the group carries in its avails a plurality of advertisements each directed to a different advertiser-specific market segment. This is necessary if the system were to use advertiser-specific market segments, i.e., market segments that have been uniquely defined by each advertiser. According to this arrangement, however, a subscriber viewing the same presentation stream will likely view ads that are inappropriate for that subscriber since a single presentation stream can carry ads directed to vastly different market segments.
To address this problem, the system of Applicant's co-pending application Ser. No. 09/750,800 filed on Dec. 28, 2000 entitled “System and Method for Delivering Targeted Advertisements Using Multiple Presentation Streams” “forces” switching between the presentation streams in the presentation stream group to select a presentation stream that is most appropriate for the subscriber at any given time. This “forced” switching is triggered every time an avail or a cue tone indicative of an avail is detected. Thus, the use of “forced” switching can increase system wear and malfunctions. Accordingly, a technique is desired which avoids the use of “forced” switching to deliver ads directed to different advertiser-specific market segments to the subscribers in a most targeted manner.
In view of the foregoing, it is an object of the present invention to provide a system and method which delivers targeted television advertising via a network without the use of “forced” presentation stream switching.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a system and method for scheduling advertisements in the presentation stream group based on channel change statistics and avail time information.